Tacit
Tacit is a London-based biometric research company (founded 2013, a brand of ID Guardian) that sells a multimodal affective-computing platform — combining facial coding, speech sentiment, eye tracking, and wearable physiological signals — to Fortune 100 consumer-insights teams and progressive brands.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2013
- HeadquartersLondon, United Kingdom
- Headcount11–50
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What Tacit does
Tacit is a London-based biometric research and affective computing company operating since 2013 as a product brand of ID Guardian. It builds a multimodal platform that combines physical signals (facial coding, speech sentiment, eye tracking, body movement) with physiological signals (EEG, ECG, GSR, respiration, temperature, oxygen saturation) collected via 200+ certified wearable devices and synchronized at millisecond precision. The core output is the Tacit Composite Metric (1-100) and derived measures such as Arousal, Valence, Stress, and HRV, grounded in scientific models including Arousal-Valence, Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions, and the General Adaptation Syndrome.
The product portfolio has four pillars: Tacit Research Platform (with Lite and Pro tiers), Tacit API (backend emotion-sensing for embedded use), Tacit Consulting (full-service research execution), and Tacit 3.0 (Generative AI plus emotional analytics for concept creation and testing, in closed beta as of mid-2023). Go-to-market is hybrid: a freemium self-service platform at app.tacit.tech targets individual researchers and SMBs, while direct enterprise sales and lab residency engagements serve Fortune 100 clients in CPG, hospitality, sports/apparel, telecom, fintech, and public-sector institutions across the US, Europe, Asia, and Latin America.
Revenue is generated through SaaS subscriptions (Lite/Pro/Enterprise), professional services (commissioned research and the 24-hour lab residency program), API licensing, and freemium-to-paid conversion. Named customers include Hilton, Adidas US, Pedigree, Hasbro, Vodafone, Revolut, NIH, and the United Nations. The company remains privately held under ID Guardian with disclosed angel-investor backing and no institutional funding rounds on record.
Tacit firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Tacit
- Legal name
- ID Guardian
- Website
- https://tacit.tech
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2013
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 11–50 employees
- Short description
- Tacit is a London-based biometric research company (founded 2013, a brand of ID Guardian) that sells a multimodal affective-computing platform — combining facial coding, speech sentiment, eye tracking, and wearable physiological signals — to Fortune 100 consumer-insights teams and progressive brands.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Tacit industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Affective Computing & Biometric Research Software
- NAICS
- Marketing Research and Public Opinion Polling (541910), Other Services Related to Advertising (541890)
- SIC
- Services-Advertising (7310)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Behavioral & Neuroscience Research (Biometrics, Eye-Tracking, Neuromarketing) (MPAAALAN)
- akta.pro secondary industry
- Emotion, Sentiment & Paralinguistic Intelligence (HDAAAFAI)
Keywords
Where Tacit is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- London
- HQ country
- United Kingdom
- HQ region
- Europe
Offices1 record
Markets served
Tacit business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Personnel, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Operations, Infrastructure
Revenue model
- SaaS Platform Subscriptions: Self-service research platform with tiered access (Lite free tier, Pro paid tier) and enterprise platform licensing. Revenue from subscription fees based on features and data collection capabilities accessed.
- Tacit Consulting: Commissioned research and consulting services: full project execution from recruitment, protocol design through analysis and debrief. Helping clients execute biometric research projects.
- Tacit API Licensing: Back-end API licensing for embedding emotion sensing capabilities into third-party platforms and research applications.
- 24-Hour Lab Residency Program: Mobile biometric research lab brought to client offices for on-site research with researchers, including purchaseable comprehensive handbooks for continued learning.
- Freemium Model Conversion: Basic Lite capabilities free with no credit card required; conversion pathway to paid Pro features including heart rate and respiration rate data access.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Freemium | Monthly | Lite - Free tier with basic biometric capabilities |
| Subscription | Monthly | Pro - Full biometric data with wearables |
| Subscription | Annual | Enterprise - Full platform and consulting |
Go-to-market motion4 records
Distribution channels5 records
Marketing channels7 records
Tacit product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Tacit sells a multimodal affective computing and biometric research platform that measures consumers' emotional, stress, and cognitive states by combining computer-vision facial coding, speech sentiment analysis, eye tracking, and body movement capture with physiological data (EEG, ECG, GSR, respiration) from certified wearable devices. The portfolio includes the Tacit Research Platform (Tacit Lite for remote AV analysis and Tacit Pro for wearable biometrics), the Tacit API for embedded emotion sensing, Tacit Consulting for end-to-end research execution, and Tacit 3.0 (in beta) combining Generative AI with emotional analytics.
Product overview
Tacit is a biometric research and affective computing company (product of ID Guardian, founded in London in 2013) offering a multi-tiered product portfolio. The core is the Tacit Research Platform, which comes in two versions: Tacit Lite (audio/video-based remote analysis using facial coding, speech sentiment, eye tracking, and body movement) and Tacit Pro (granular biometrics via wearables including EEG, ECG, GSR, respiration). The Tacit API provides backend-only integration for embedding emotion sensing into existing platforms. Tacit Consulting offers full-service research execution. Tacit 3.0 (in Beta) combines Generative AI with emotional analytics for concept creation and testing.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Brands
- Tacit Research Platform: Complete solution for managing biometric research, affective computing, and behavioral experiments, compatible with wearable devices
- Tacit API
- Tacit Lite
- Tacit Pro
- Tacit Consulting
Products and services
- Tacit Research Platform Complete solution for conducting biometric research, affective computing, and behavioral experiments, compatible with off-the-shelf certified wearable devices paired with Tacit software. Manages research design, stimuli, respondents, anonymization, and raw data with KPI analysis.
- Tacit Lite Audio and video-based remote biometric analysis at scale, offering facial coding (micro expressions), speech sentiment analysis, heart rate and respiration rate (beta) from RGB signal, posture and body movement analysis, hand movement tracking, and object detection within browsing sessions. Fully remote and scalable.
- Tacit Pro Granular biometrics through wearables providing detailed personalized analysis, including EEG signals with millisecond accuracy, ECG signals (IBI, HRV for emotional states), fine movement via accelerometers and gyroscopes, and psychometrics based on standardized questionnaires. Includes mobile lab testing environment with real-time data preprocessing.
- Tacit API Backend-only solution that allows existing voice and video recordings to be passed directly to Tacit's AI models for emotion sensing and affective analysis, giving partners complete control of the user experience when embedding into research platforms and applications.
- Tacit Consulting End-to-end commissioned research services helping clients execute biometric research projects, covering recruitment, protocol design, data collection, analysis, and debrief.
- Tacit 3.0 Combines Generative AI for creating campaign, product, and UI concepts with Tacit's emotional analytics to find winning concepts and fine-tune them to target audiences. Includes Google Trends and Exploding Topics integrations for growth opportunity detection. Currently in closed beta with brands including Adidas and Revolut.
Quantifiable outcome
- Millisecond precision in timestamp correlation between stimuli and biometric responses
- +2 more outcomes
Companies that use Tacit
Customer profileNamed customers9 records
Segments5 records
Ideal customer profiles6 records
Tacit technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- Yes
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Integration2 records
AI capability8 records
Feature8 records
Tacit partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Eight partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.
- Adidas UScoreAdidas US Sport Science Insights team collaborates with Tacit on biometric research for behavioral science and implicit insights. Presented joint work at IIEX Behavior 2021 conference on how biometric data delivers value for product development and consumer understanding.
- Hilton Hotels & ResortscoreEngaged during COVID-19 lockdown to help streamline Hilton's new product initiatives for post-pandemic market. Conducted granular biometric measurement of long-term stay products for knowledge workers, including A/B testing and quantitative analysis.
- Faculty of Business and Economics (University of Zagreb)coreFive-year educational partnership for 'Introduction to Affective Computing in e-Business' course. Faculty holds EQUIS, AACSB, and EFMD accreditations. Platform used by students for final projects with hands-on multimodal affective computing training.
- University of ZurichminorAcademic research institution collaborating with Tacit on affective computing research and methodologies. Listed among trusted academic partners.
- Pilar InstituteminorResearch institution listed among trusted academic partners collaborating on biometric research initiatives.
- RevolutcoreConsumer and digital brand piloting Tacit 3.0 methodology since March for product development, consumer insights, and communications departments. Early adopter of Generative AI meets Emotional AI approach.
- Insight PlatformsminorFeatured in Insight Platforms directory and 'The Big Book of Free Software for Research & Analytics' alongside leading UX research tools, providing market visibility and distribution.
- GreenBook/IIEXcoreConference partnership for keynote presentations at IIEX Behavior, IIEX Europe, and IIEX Health. Platform for showcasing methodology, case studies, and building industry thought leadership.
Scale indicators4 records
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights6 records
Tacit competitors and assessment
Company assessmentBroad incumbents
- Ipsos: Global market research group with broad services across CPG, healthcare and financial services. Competes with Tacit for enterprise insights budgets, with significantly larger panel and infrastructure assets.
- Nielsen: Global consumer insights and audience measurement giant. Sells market research to the same Fortune 100 buyer Tacit targets, and could bundle biometric capabilities into its portfolio.
- Tobii: Global leader in eye-tracking technology used in market research and consumer insights. Overlaps with Tacit on eye-tracking-led measurement, though Tobii focuses on hardware and broader research applications.
- Kantar: World's largest market research and consumer insights company with extensive CPG relationships. Same enterprise buyers as Tacit, with broader portfolio including panels, brand tracking and analytics.
Direct peers
- Realeyes: Provides emotion AI for ad and creative testing using webcam-based facial coding and computer vision. Competes head-to-head with Tacit Lite in attention/emotion measurement for enterprise advertisers.
- Affectiva (Smart Eye): Pioneer in emotion-sensing AI for advertising and market research, acquired by Smart Eye. Directly comparable to Tacit on facial coding, speech sentiment and consumer-insights deployments at global brands.
- CoolTool: Neuromarketing and biometric research tool for ad and UX testing using eye tracking, facial coding and surveys. Directly comparable to Tacit in the consumer-insights / neuromarketing use case.
- Sticky: AI-powered ad creative testing platform using biometric and attention signals to predict in-market performance. Overlaps with Tacit's ad-effectiveness and concept-testing offerings.
- iMotions: Biometric research platform combining EEG, GSR, eye tracking and facial coding with wearables. Closest competitor to Tacit Pro on multimodal physiological data collection and academic/enterprise research workflows.
Emerging players
- Hume AI: Foundation-model lab building APIs for expressive voice, video and language understanding, including emotion and sentiment. Adjacent technology stack to Tacit's, targeting developers and enterprise with lower-cost emotion inference.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat5 records
Key risks5 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
Tacit social profiles
Digital presenceTacit compliance and trust
Trust signalCompliance1 record
Tacit financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Tacit leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles1 record
Tacit funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds
Investors
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Tacit M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Tacit
What does Tacit do?
Tacit sells a multimodal affective computing and biometric research platform that measures consumers' emotional, stress, and cognitive states by combining computer-vision facial coding, speech sentiment analysis, eye tracking, and body movement capture with physiological data (EEG, ECG, GSR, respiration) from certified wearable devices. The portfolio includes the Tacit Research Platform (Tacit Lite for remote AV analysis and Tacit Pro for wearable biometrics), the Tacit API for embedded emotion sensing, Tacit Consulting for end-to-end research execution, and Tacit 3.0 (in beta) combining Generative AI with emotional analytics.
Is Tacit a public or private company?
Tacit is a private company. It is classified as founder individual operated bootstrapped and is currently operating.
When was Tacit founded?
Tacit was founded in 2013. It employs 11 to 50 people.
Where is Tacit based?
Tacit is headquartered in London, United Kingdom, in the Europe region.
How does Tacit make money?
Five revenue lines are on record. SaaS Platform Subscriptions are the primary driver. The others are tacit Consulting, tacit API Licensing, 24-Hour Lab Residency Program and freemium Model Conversion.
Who are Tacit's main competitors?
Broad incumbents on record are Ipsos, Nielsen, Tobii and Kantar. Direct peers are Realeyes, Affectiva (Smart Eye), CoolTool, Sticky and iMotions. Hume AI is listed as an emerging player.
Does Tacit have an API?
Yes. A backend-only solution that allows existing recordings to be passed directly to Tacit's AI models. Enables embedding emotion sensing and affective capabilities into research platforms, giving complete control of user experience from start to finish. Developer documentation is at docs.tacit.tech.
What industry is Tacit in?
Tacit's product category is Affective Computing & Biometric Research Software. Its primary akta.pro industry code is MPAAALAN, Behavioral & Neuroscience Research (Biometrics, Eye-Tracking, Neuromarketing), with a secondary code of HDAAAFAI, Emotion, Sentiment & Paralinguistic Intelligence. Its NAICS code is 541910 and its SIC code is 7310.